Test & Code

Latest Episodes:

120: FastAPI & Typer - Sebastián Ramírez Jul 03, 2020

Show notes

FastAPI is a modern, fast (high-performance), web framework for building APIs with Python based on standard Python type hints.
Typer is a library for building CLI applications, also based on Python type hints.
Type hints and many other details are intended to make it easier to develop, test, and debug applications using FastAPI and Typer.

The person behind FastAPI and Typer is Sebastián Ramírez.

Sebastián is on the show today, and we discuss:

FastAPI
Rest APIs
Swagger UI
Future features of FastAPI
Starlette
Typer
Click
Testing with Typer and Click
Typer autocompletion
Typer CLI

Special Guest: Sebastián Ramírez.

Links:

Explosion
FastAPI
Typer
OpenAPI Specification
JSON Schema
OAuth 2.0
Starlette
pydantic
Swagger UI — REST API Documentation Tool
Testing - Typer
Click
Testing Click Applications
CLI Option autocompletion - Typer
Typer CLI - completion for small scripts

119: Editable Python Installs, Packaging Standardization, and pyproject.toml - Brett Cannon Jun 26, 2020

Show notes

There's stuff going on in Python packaging and pyproject.toml.

Brett and I talk about some upcoming work on Python packaging, such as:

editable installs
the need for standardization
configuration of other tools in pyproject.toml

And then get off on tangents and talk about:

why it's good to have packages like pip, toml, setuptools, wheel, etc not part of the standard library
should we remove some stuff from the standard library
the standard library using unittest for testing the standard library
- why not hypothesis
- I didn't bring up "why not pytest?" but you know I was thinking it.
why CPython and not C++Python
and more

Special Guest: Brett Cannon.

Links:

118: Code Coverage and 100% Coverage Jun 25, 2020

Show notes

Code Coverage or Test Coverage is a way to measure what lines of code and branches in your code that are utilized during testing.
Coverage tools are an important part of software engineering.

But there's also lots of different opinions about using it.

Should you try for 100% coverage?
What code can and should you exclude?
What about targets?

I've been asked many times what I think about code coverage or test coverage.
This episode is a train of thought brain dump on what I think about code coverage.

We'll talk about:

how I use code coverage to help me write source code
line coverage and branch coverage
behavior coverage
using tests to ask and answer questions about the system under test
how to target coverage just to the code you care about
excluding code
good reasons and bad reasons to exclude code

And also the Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule, and the law of diminishing returns and how that applies (or doesn't) to test coverage.

Links:

117: Python extension for VS Code - Brett Cannon Jun 18, 2020

Show notes

The Python extension for VS Code is most downloaded extension for VS Code.
Brett Cannon is the manager for the distributed development team of the Python extension for VS Code.

In this episode, Brett and I discuss the Python extension and VS Code, including:

pytest support
virtual environment support
how settings work, including user and workspace settings
multi root projects
testing Python in VS Code
debugging and pydevd
jump to cursor feature
upcoming features

Special Guest: Brett Cannon.

Links:

116: 15 amazing pytest plugins - Michael Kennedy Jun 07, 2020

Show notes

pytest plugins are an amazing way to supercharge your test suites, leveraging great solutions from people solving test problems all over the world. In this episode Michael and I discuss 15 favorite plugins that you should know about.

We also discuss fixtures and plugins and other testing tools that work great with pytest

tox
GitHub Actions
Coverage.py
Selenium + splinter with pytest-splinter
Hypothesis

And then our list of pytest plugins:

pytest-sugar
pytest-cov
pytest-stress
pytest-repeat
pytest-instafail
pytest-metadata
pytest-randomly
pytest-xdist
pytest-flake8
pytest-timeout
pytest-spec
pytest-picked
pytest-freezegun
pytest-check
fluentcheck

That last one isn't a plugin, but we also talked about pytest-splinter at the beginning. So I think it still counts as 15.

Special Guest: Michael Kennedy.

Links:

pytest-sugar — changes the default look and feel of pyptest (e.g. progressbar, show tests that fail instantly)
pytest-cov — run coverage.py from pytest
pytest-stress — allows you to loop tests for a user defined amount of time.
pytest-repeat — for repeating test execution
pytest-instafail — shows failures and errors instantly instead of waiting until the end of test session.
pytest-metadata — for accessing test session metadata
pytest-randomly — randomly order tests and control random.seed
pytest-xdist — distributed testing
pytest-flake8 — pytest plugin to run flake8
pytest-timeout — terminate tests after a certain timeout
pytest-spec — display test execution output like a specification
pytest-picked — run the tests related to the changed files (according to Git)
pytest-freezegun — easily freeze time
pytest-check — allows multiple failures per test
fluentcheck — fluent assertions
episode 104 — Top 28 pytest plugins with Anthony Sottile
Python Testing with pytest — The easiest way to get up to speed with pytest fast. There's also a chapter dedicated to plugins that also teaches you how to write and test your own plugins.
tox
GitHub Actions
Coverage.py
pytest-splinter — provides a set of fixtures to use splinter for browser testing
splinter — makes it easy to write automated tests of web applications
hypothesis — property-based testing
Talk Python Episode #267 — This episode is a cross post with Talk Python

115: Catching up with Nina Zakharenko May 30, 2020

Show notes

One of the great things about attending in person coding conferences, such as PyCon, is the hallway track, where you can catch up with people you haven't seen for possibly a year, or maybe even the first time you've met in person.

Nina is starting something like the hallway track, online, on twitch, and it's already going, so check out the first episode of Python Tea.

Interesting coincidence is that this episode is kind of like a hallway track discussion between Nina and Brian.

We've had Nina on the show a couple times before, but it's been a while.

In 2018, we talked about Mentoring on episode 44.
In 2019, we talked about giving Memorable Tech Talks in episode 71.

In this episode, we catch up with Nina, find out what she's doing, and talk about a bunch of stuff, including:

Live Coding
Online Conferences
Microsoft Python team
Python Tea, an online hallway track
Q&A with Python for VS Code team
Python on hardware
Adafruit
Device Simulator Express
CircuitPython
Tricking out your command prompt
Zsh and Oh My Zsh
Emacs vs vi key bindings for shells
Working from home

Special Guest: Nina Zakharenko.

Links:

114: The Python Software Foundation (PSF) Board Elections - Ewa Jodlowska / Christopher Neugebauer May 24, 2020

Show notes

"The mission of the Python Software Foundation is to promote, protect, and advance the Python programming language, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of Python programmers."

That's a lot of responsibility, and to that end, the PSF Board Directors help out quite a bit.

If you want to be a part of the board, you can. There's an election coming up right around the corner and you gotta get your nomination in by May 31. You can also join the PSF if you want to vote for who gets to be part of the board.

But what does it really mean to be on the Board, and what are some of the things the PSF does?

To help answer those questions, I've got Ewa Jodlowska, the PSF Executive Director, and Christopher Neugebauer, a current board member, on the show today. I've also got some great links in the show notes if we don't answer your questions and you want to find out more.

Special Guests: Christopher Neugebauer and Ewa Jodlowska.

Links:

113: Technical Debt - James Smith May 15, 2020

Show notes

Technical debt has to be dealt with on a regular basis to have a healthy product and development team.

The impacts of technical debt include emotional drain on engineers and slowing down development and can adversely affect your hiring ability and retention.

But really, what is technical debt? Can we measure it? How do we reduce it, and when?

James Smith, the CEO of Bugsnag, joins the show to talk about technical debt and all of these questions.

Special Guest: James Smith.

112: Six Principles of Readable Tests - David Seddon May 08, 2020

Show notes

"Code is read much more often than it is written." - Guido van Rossum
This is true for both production code and test code.

When you are trying to understand why a test is failing, you'll be very grateful to the test author if they've taken the care to make it readable.

David Seddon came up with 6 principles to help us write more readable tests.
We discuss these, as well as more benefits of readable tests.

David's 6 Principles of Readable Tests:

Profit from the work of others
Put naming to work
Show only what matters
Don’t repeat yourself
Arrange, act, assert
Aim high

Special Guest: David Seddon.

Links:

111: Subtests in Python with unittest and pytest - Paul Ganssle May 02, 2020

Show notes

In both unittest and pytest, when a test function hits a failing assert, the test stops and is marked as a failed test.

What if you want to keep going, and check more things?

There are a few ways. One of them is subtests.

Python's unittest introduced subtests in Python 3.4.

pytest introduced support for subtests with changes in pytest 4.4 and a plugin, called pytest-subtests.
Subtests are still not really used that much.

But really, what are they? When could you use them?

And more importantly, what should you watch out for if you decide to use them?

That's what Paul Ganssle and I will be talking about today.

Special Guest: Paul Ganssle.

Links:

Subtests in Python — Paul's article on subtests
subtests in unittest - Python docs
pytest-subtests: plugin to support subtests in pytest
pytest-check: A pytest plugin that allows multiple failures per test.

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